$CB $TVR In any case this emergency health chaos will trigger the largest single loss in insurance history. UBS estimates industry insured losses for non-US business interruption total $7 to 22-B. In the US, monthly small business losses are seen at between so far at $431, according to the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, rendering […]

$DIA $SPY $QQQ $RUTX $VXX Black Swans in financial markets are extreme rare events. And how you survive and thrive when 1 happens is Key. With that in mind let’s look at some Black Swan mitigation strategies, as follows: In Nassim Taleb’s “Black Swan” (required reading) he suggests that he is constantly taking small losses […]

$GLD $XAU Friday, April COMEX gold settled at 1566.70, down 75.80 or -4.61%. The move was driven by professional and hedge funds selling as the 2 major players sought to raise cash to meet margin calls and to offset tremendous losses in the stock market. The gold market posted its biggest weekly decliner since November. Despite the […]

$MJ Marijuana ETFs fell into Y 2020, adding to ‘tears’ for investors who got hammered last year trying to chase a 1-time market darling. The ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF, ticker MJ, sank 1.3% on the 1st day of the year, while broad market indexes rallied to new records. The fall continued a 9-month slide for […]

Hurricane Florence Pounds Some Financial Markets $KBWP, $All, $TRV, $IAK, $HD, $LOW, $GNRC The path of Hurricane Florence’s potential destruction runs right through markets from stocks to mortgage-backed securities. The Category 4 storm, which is forcing more than 1-M people to flee to safety and could wreak as much as $27-B in damages in the […]

Insurer’s Catastrophic Losses Exceeded $175-B in 2016 A leading insurer reports that last year saw the highest costs from natural disasters since Y 2012, with 2 earthquakes in Japan in April accounting for the heaviest losses. Munich Re (FWB:MUV2) said in an annual survey Wednesday that losses from natural disasters totaled $175 billion last year, some […]

The Truth & Consequences of Breaking the $35oz Gold Peg $GLD, $SLV, $DIA, $SPY Since July 8th, the DJIA (Dow Jones) has seen only one day where it closed more than 1.50% from its last all-time high (Aug 2nd: -1.51%). Since then the Dow Jones has also seen 9 new all-time highs, 7 of them […]

People Spend a Lot of Time Telling Other People They are Wrong I am always amazed at amount of time and energy that people spend telling others when and why they are wrong. In stock and commodities business, people are wrong all the time. We stop out and move on, the Key is to cut […]